Learn About Quasars With KidsAstronomy.com
Powerful objects that exist at the edge of the visible Universe.

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Quasars are extremely distant objects in our known universe. They are the furthest objects away from our galaxy that can be seen. Quasars are extremely bright masses of energy and light. The name quasar is actually short for quasi-stellar radio source or quasi-stellar object.

Quasars are the brightest objects in our universe, although to see one through a telescope they do not look that bright at all. This is because quasars are so far away. They emit radio waves, x-rays and light waves. Quasars appear as faint red stars to us here on Earth.

A quasar is believed to be a supermassive black hole surrounded by an accretion disk. An accretion disk is a flat, disk-like structure of gas that rapidly spirals around a larger object, like a black hole, a new star, a white dwarf, etc. A quasar gradually attracts this gas and sometimes other stars or or even small galaxies with their superstrong gravity. These objects get sucked into the black hole. When a galaxy, star or gas is absorbed into a quasar in such a way, the result is a massive collision of matter that causes a gigantic explosive output of radiation energy and light. This great burst of energy results in a flare, which is a distinct characteristic of quasars.

The light, radiation and radio waves from these galaxies and stars being absorbed into a black hole travel billions of light years through space. When we look at quasars which are 10-15 billion light years away, we are looking 10-15 billion years into the past. Pretty amazing, right?